In a turn of phrase that seems designed to provoke headlines, the US Department of Defense this week said one of its primary goals is to “take the ‘man’ out of unmanned” combat. This quote and much more comes from the latest in the Department’s ongoing series of Roadmap to the Future reports, which seek to lay out both the current realities and future plans of the US military and defense industry.

NASA’s Johnson Space Center has finally unveiled Valkyrie, its “superhero robot” entry to the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Trials, which take place on December 20 in Florida. Valkyrie will compete against fellow humanoid robots, such as Atlas, on a series of eight physical tasks to test the dexterity and autonomy of the robots, with the chance of going forward to the DRC Finals in 2014, where it could win $2 million from the US government. The DRC isn’t about money, though: It’s all about accelerating humanity’s development of advanced humanoid robots, for use in hazardous situations… such as war.